Confluence of Spheres

Quia tenebræ cadent

Donovan Aldavir (Deceased)

Slightly Demented Half-Elf Warlock Who Focuses More on Dumb Jokes Than He Probably Should

Description:

Bio:

Left in a mostly destroyed room of the Jolly Elf Inn in the city of Highmoon along with several gold coins…

It’s done. No, that’s not right. I think it’s only just started. As I write these words I can feel the pulsing in my veins, the heat on my skin, the thrumming in my head. It’s hard to believe that only a couple months ago I was merely an entertainer, a musician plying my trade at taverns and alehouses, inns and pubs. That chapter of my life has ended. As I let go I feel it important to write down the event which has brought me here, to exorcise its hold on me and move forward.

I was at the Pale Moon Tavern performing some songs and telling tall tales to a moderately interested crowd. One of my routines was to roast some of the patrons in song and good humor, but little did I know of the repercussions that were to follow. There was a man or man –like figure, I’ll never know for sure and am glad for it, shrouded in black at the corner of the bar. Time, and the actions that man inflicted upon me, have taken the exact words I uttered to earn his ire, but the consequences it seems shall be eternal. He came upon me shortly after I had taken leave of the tavern; a cool sensation gripped my limbs which I mistook for the evenings chill. The next moment it was as if my body was in the vice-like grip of some giant…thing, I couldn’t move. From behind me I heard a voice, dark and heavy and though it was even in tone the reproach and anger behind it was palpable. “So you think yourself quite the wit it seems, boy” he came around and stood before me, but all I could see was darkness under the raised hood of his cloak. I tried to speak, but my mouth wouldn’t open, he stepped in closer to me. Despite being only inches away I still saw only pure blackness peering back at me. “Well funny boy, I have a joke for you.” He leaned in and whispered into my ear a language I’d never heard before nor would like never to hear again. I had no idea what it was he said all I know is that when he was done a fire erupted in my brain. Every thought, every moment, every sensation, every…thing I’d ever experienced replayed themselves all at once in my mind and it began to unravel. The grip keeping me in place released and I collapsed instantly and began to shake and cry and laugh and scream for what seemed like an eternity. The man stood and watched and laughed as I was transformed into a gibbering heap and in that moment I was aware and the next I was no longer where I was. I was outside of my physical self observing what he had done to me. I looked to him and saw he was no longer covered in darkness, but was emitting this incredible aura of green and purple, strands of which rose far into the night’s sky. I willed myself forward and toward the light as if in response to an unheard call. As I drew in closer I could hear a humming from the point in the sky connected to the strands. The humming was cold and unfeeling and as I reached out to the strands the humming turned into a hushed voice that was strange and alien. The voice leaped from the light and into my consciousness and then…

There was an intense flash of light and warmth and the next thing I knew I was in my body again and the man was gone. I lay motionless there in the street staring at the star filled sky in awe and wonder and incredible physical pain for about an hour before I was able to get to my feet and home. The next few days are a blur. All I can recall is the obsession; the need to understand what had been done to me and how to never be so powerless again. As if guided by some unseen hand I found myself suddenly in the possession of numerous arcane books of rituals and strange rites. Tomes and ancient texts about extra dimensions and the outer planes and the strange and unexplainable, indescribable, and unfathomably powerful things that dwelled within and outside of them. Which all lead to tonight, tonight I have finally made contact. After several failed attempts success is at last mine. The ritual was set, the words memorized, and the scrolls and candles were in place. I shouted out to the very heavens the words of a language I had no right to speak using every ounce of willpower to keep my mind focused and strong. The room filled with a terrible noise and a chilling wind. Louder I cried out and repeated the mantra, the words of power until I could feel my vocal chords burn and strain, then everything stopped. The room was quiet and still. I thought I’d failed again and collapsed in defeat, but after a moment something in the air shifted and a smell, like that after a thunderstorm crept in. The scrolls lay before me shimmered and began to…slither, the only word that comes to mind, toward me as if alive. I didn’t move, couldn’t move, this had to mean that the ritual had worked. The scrolls wrapped themselves around my limbs and coiled about my torso before stopping. The next part…hurt…a lot. The sentient paper constricted and squeezed tightly, the writings on them began to glow with arcane energy that singed through my clothes and into my flesh. I remember screaming and then blackness. In the blackness a voice spoke. This voice sounded familiar and then it revealed itself as the same voice from the strands of light.

“Well done young one” it said with all the warmth of an ancient grave, “you have called us and we have answered, what is it you would like?”

“Power” the word jumped from my throat. The voice chuckled at this, but it was a dry and dark sound.

“Well, if that is what you want it can easily be arranged, but there is a cost.” I could almost see in some far off corner of the universe the grim smile spread across this creature’s face as it spoke. “All you have to do is agree to the terms and conditions of a very simple contract.”

“What are these ‘terms and conditions’?” I asked as a small semblance of willpower returned to me.

“In exchange for being given considerable power and knowledge you will agree to act as our agent in your world.”

“Agent?”

“Yes, agent, avatar, provocateur, whichever you prefer, should the time come you will act on our behalf to make sure certain of our goals and plans come to fruition. As to what these goals and plans maybe I cannot say, but for the most part their outcomes would be mutually beneficial for yourself as well.”

“And that is all? I just have to agree to be your puppet at some unknown point for some unknown purpose?”

“Yes” at that I paused and thought. What was it I was doing? How damaged by that mental onslaught had I been to come to this moment? While pondering over this I briefly flashed back upon that night and the agony I’d endured.

“I agree.” No sooner had the words left me when a surge of power flooded my entire being and I slipped into unconsciousness. When I awoke I found that I was lying in the center of the room completely naked, the writing and markings that had been on the scrolls now covered my body and I could feel power coursing within me. I flexed my hand and focused on the energy and a bolt of arcane force blasted a hole in the wall. After that I dressed myself and began to clean up when I noticed that a piece of one of the scrolls had survived. I picked it up and saw that written in an impossibly clean and precise script the words “West” and “Greenest”.

And that is when I started writing these very words, I’ve never been one for journaling or traveling for that matter, but things have changed. I have changed; become…I’m not sure what, but now is not the time for that. What it is time for? To go and heed the call of my masters? No. Nothing so strong or overbearing as that. Patrons, yes that has the feel, the right sort of vague foreboding sense of it. Come what may I would have it be known that what I did out of fear and weakness will be justified in the end. Also, sorry for the mess.